


Humble Beginnings

by IHearttheHitachiinTwins



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alastor is a very messed up child, And is even more so after the events of this story, Animal Death, Don't eat corpses you find in the woods kids, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, No matter what species they are, Symbolicly significant deer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26909224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IHearttheHitachiinTwins/pseuds/IHearttheHitachiinTwins
Summary: When Alastor was seven years old and no higher than his Mama's knee, he got lost in the bayou...What he saw there might have broken something. Just a little.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Humble Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rotten Venison](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25737826) by [ckret2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2). 



> Please mind the tags
> 
> I don't know where this came from. This was birthed from my brain in two 30 minute breaks at work. I didn't ean for the symbolisim to creep in there, it just turned up

When Alastor was seven years old and no higher than his Mama's knee, he got lost in the bayou.

His father was taking him. On a "hunting trip to teach him how to be a man", father had said gruffly to his mother, "get that woman's work you try to teach him outta his head."

"Woman's work" was what he called cooking and sewing. The things Mama was so good at! Alastor didn't understand why father didn't like it, Mama was the most amazing person in the world. Shouldnt he want to be like her?

Mama was still nursing a purple eye and mottled green wrists from last night, so she didn’t say anything. Alastor knew it was from last night because he hid between the loose slats behind the stove after he had a nightmare, and saw her hit the floor. Father's heavy boots stomping across the kitchen shook his hiding spot, but he didn't reveal himself. Mama always said not to, not when Father yelled like that. He was waiting for the day when he was big and could yell too. But he’d never yell at Mama. 

Father though… That was a different story.

They were out on a hunting trip and father suddenly grabbed him by the ear and pulled him low to the ground. 

“See there. boy? That’s dinner.”

He muttered lowly as he jerked his head towards a doe carefully picking through the swamp. Alastor watched. She was beautiful. Lightly speckled with white spots and large brown eyes. Her ears flicked a few times before leaning down to graze at some grass. Alastor was entranced. It moved with such grace and precision, like Mama in the kitchen. So in her element as she.

Father was shifting beside him, lining up the rifle, and Alastor felt uncomfortable. Something about the whole scenario made him feel sick in his stomach. 

It wasn’t the death, he’d happily ripped apart rats and rabbits before, anything that got caught in the snares by the property to catch the foxes. He wasn’t allowed to kill the foxes themselves, because Mrs Oakley skinned and sold their fur and apparently Alastor made a mess of the pelts. He didn’t much care what Mrs Oakley wanted, but Mama said Mrs Oakley gave her some quiet money for the skins. Alastor knew money was important. Adults seemed to make a big deal of it anyway, so he left the foxes alone. Last fall he helped Old Man Jenkins down the street kill and pluck his chickens. He liked bleeding them and watching them slowly stop twitching, He thought it was funny, and they made much fewer annoying noises when they were dead.

Needless to say, Alastor was fine with death. He’d never seen anything this big die before, but he didn’t think that was the problem.

The deer seemed to look at him with those big, brown eyes.

They reminded him of Mama.

The bushes rustled a little ways off and a small shape bounded out towards the doe. A fawn with spindly legs and fur that was still fluffy with youth. The doe leaned into it as it approached and licked a stripe down it’s back. The fawn squeaked a bit and danced little circles around the doe, presumably it’s mother.

They were downwind and the breeze brought the small sounds of nature from the two creatures. The doe and fawn were still blissfully unaware, walking together, eating as they pleased…

A soft, almost silent ‘click’ beside him made his whole world zero in on his father and the gleam of the rifle’s barrel.

“Stop!”

Alastor lunged onto his father’s hands as he squeezed the trigger, knocking the rifle askew. The shot flew off harmlessly into the air. The doe and fawn jerked in surprise and fled into the trees. Alastor watched his father, who was breathing heavily. There was a smoldering anger in his eyes as he bore down on Alastor, brow twitching and face quickly growing red.

Alastor knew that look. He’d never had it directed at him. But he knew it. He felt every muscle in his body tense as his father suddenly roared at him so loud it felt like the very trees quailed.

“You stupid little shit! What thefuck was that? You just lost us the kill! I’ll rip your skin off your bones and eat  _ you _ instead!”

Heart pounding and eyes wide, Alastor had the sudden and keen realization that the deer probably had the right idea.

As his father’s hand descended, Alastor turned tail and without a second’s more hesitation, fled into the swamp.

Trees, bushes, and roots whizzed by. He could hear his father giving chase, but Alastor was fast, slipping through small gaps and through shallow rivers so his tracks weren’t easy to follow. He knew the bayou well from hours and hours of exploring and while he didn’t know these specific places, he knew the general layout well enough to know how to move. His whole body was heaving and he was out of breath by the time his father’s angry hollering faded into the distance.

By the time he felt safe to stop, the air was blue with dusk. Distances grew hard to gauge and he was completely turned around. He had no idea what direction he had come from or which way home was.

“Hello?” He called into the swamp with all the boldness of a child. “Is anyone out there?”

He looked around for a light, ears training for any sound that might indicate a house or people he could talk to, but there was nothing.

He was totally alone.

He scuffed his feet into the mud. His feet ached from running. As the sun began to sink, he was getting bitten by mosquitoes and the shadows stretched menacingly. He whimpered a little when an unfamiliar animal call broke through the night, and the water seemed to make strange shapes and noises. The all too familiar hiss of an alligator had him bolting out of the river he was standing in and finding a bank to stand on. 

He looked around listlessly, suddenly feeling very small.

“Mama?” 

His eyes began to sting, and he scrubbed at the tears before they could form.

_ “Keep smiling, Mon loulou, they can take your life but they can’t take your smile…” _

Memories of Mama’s words made the tears burn even worse, but he forced his mouth into a smile anyway and started marching forwards.

_ “Just keep smiling and make your maman proud.” _

He had to run into someone at some point.

That was true in theory, but after some time, Alastor realised that he not make it to the point he might run into someone.

Even young as he was, he knew the stories about people who had vanished into the swamps and never returned. He walked all through the night and as the sun peeked over the horizon and bathed the whole world in swathes of red light.

By this time his shoes were leaking blood and he was out of breath. He found another bank with a big tree and crawled between the roots. The sounds of the swamp were familiar, but scarier than they had ever been before. He was so tired... He curled up and hugged himself, hoping that it would feel like when Mama hugged him.

It didn’t but he fell asleep anyways.

When he woke up again, it was late afternoon, or at the very least dark enough to be. He looked around and his surroundings were just as alien as they ever were.

“Hello! Anybody? Mama!”

He cried into the swamp. Hoping desperately someone would hear him this time.

Nobody did.

He kept walking, calling every so often. He wondered if he would ever get home. Was Mama looking for him? Would she be sad he was gone?

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost tripped over something sticking out of the bushes. At first he thought it was a root, long and brown, but looking closer he realised it was a cloven hoof attached to a furry leg.

He peeked through the bushes to see a giant stag lying on its side. Antlers sunk in the mud and massive gashes in his side.

Alastor blinked, looking into the stag’s glassy, dead eyes. It’s tongue was sticking out and flies were crawling on its face.It was so very still. Not even a breath to move it’s flanks. It was a large animal, but in death it didn’t look nearly as impressive as he suspected it did when it was lumbering about. He heard a strange, wet sound on the other side of it and peeked over the corpse. 

On the other side, the fawn from earlier had it’s muzzle in a gaping slash in the stag’s side. The doe was nowhere to be seen.

“Are you lost too?” He asked it softly. “Where’s mama?”

The fawn just pulled it’s head out and blinked at him consideringly. It watched him for a few tense seconds, soft fur smeared with gore and viscera, before it put it’s head down and went on eating. Alastor looked at the gash the fawn was eating from and his stomach jerked painfully.

He hadn’t eaten anything since before father dragged him out.

A memory came unbidden, from just before it all went wrong. Father nudging him and gesturing at the doe.

_ “That’s dinner.” _

Dinner sounded good.

He looked at the gash closest to him. The flesh oozed a bit with blood.

“Like this?” 

He asked the fawn, pressing his face into the cut and trying to tear off a piece with his teeth. Itb was tough, and the meat was slippery, but he managed to get a chunk off. The fawn ignored him.

Alastor figured out a system of biting and pulling, ripping the meat off the body until he felt full. His mouth tasted coppery and strange, but his stomach had stopped hurting. His face was smeared with red.

He looked at the fawn, who was also seemingly finished, and looking at him. Alastor plastered a smile back in place. It was easier to muster than the first time.

“Thanks for sharing.”

The fawn said nothing, just turned and bounded away.

Alastor was suddenly very sleepy. He leaned against the shag’s back. It wasn’t warm, and the fur was bristly, but he didn’t much care. He fell asleep in minutes, belly full.

He dreamed of bloody flesh and gunshots and dead glassy eyes that didn’t belong to any deer.

The next day he was awoken to shouting.

“This him?”

“Is that a body?”

“Look at him, he’s covered in blood….”

He was herded by a crowd of faceless strangers until he was in his Mama’s arms.

“Alastor! Mon cherie, Where were you, I was so worried…” She held him tight and he leaned into her like she was the only solid land on earth. “Everything’s gonna be okay, we’re gonna stay with Grandmama for a while, okay? While your daddy... cools down.”

Alastor nodded, bloody fingers curled around her wrist and in her skirts.

“I’m proud of you, Ally.”

She told him.

He nodded again.

And through it all, from the moment he thanked the fawn, his smile never wavered.

He took his Mama’s hand, and they went home.


End file.
